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Airborne commander who was mired in the Arnhem dispute

Peter Davies

August 20 2011, 1:01am, The Times

Browning with his starchy and distant manner did not recommend himself to the Americans with whom he had to work

As a fighting soldier “Boy” Browning had already acquired a reputation in the British Army by the end of the First World War. As a 20-year-old Grenadier Guards lieutenant he had won the DSO on the Western Front in 1917 for taking command of three companies whose officers had all been wounded and inspiring them to repel attacks by overwhelming numbers of Germans. In between the wars he had combined a zeal as one of the reforming spirits among middle-ranking army officers with marriage to the formidably unconventional novelist Daphne du Maurier.

During the Second World War he established himself as a leading advocate of airborne operations and, as Richard Mead’s book makes clear, the creation of Britain’s airborne forces as a distinct fighting arm…

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